• My Story
    • Early Life
    • The Questioning
    • The Conversion
    • Coming Out
  • The Amish
  • My Philosophy
    • Epistemology
    • Ethics
    • Metaphysics
    • Mind
    • Religion
  • Breaking Amish
  • Other
  • Guest Posts
  • About Me
    • FAQ

X Amish Atheist

~ fighting dogma from behind the lines…

X Amish Atheist

Category Archives: Other

College and the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund

05 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ 15 Comments


It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything to this blog. I am currently enrolled in a local college, so most of my time is taken up by work and study. I love college, and I wish I had enrolled years ago. Better late than never, I guess. Many of you readers have encouraged me to enroll, and that’s largely why I finally took the leap. Thank you! You are amazing!

Of all the ex-Amish people I know (hundreds), less than a handful have gone to college. Why don’t more of them seek a higher education? I believe there are several reasons:

  1. Many of them don’t think it’s necessary. Many of them believe they can make a decent living and enjoy life without going to college. In a way they’re right. The Amish are taught to be hardworking and entrepreneurial. Many Amish and ex-Amish start businesses, and whether it’s a furniture shop or a construction company, they often succeed fantastically. It is not uncommon to find college-educated people working for an Amish employer that has no more than an eighth-grade education.
  2. Another reason for not going to college, I suspect, is that the ex-Amish don’t set set their dreams very high relative to the general population. For them, just being out among the “English” is so much of an adventure that going to college and doing even greater things doesn’t seem that much of a step up.
  3. For many ex-Amish, college sounds like an intellectual hardship. Many of them didn’t enjoy Amish parochial school, and most have been away from the world of study and exams for so long that they shudder at the idea of returning.
  4. As for myself, I’ve always planned on going to college some day. The only thing holding me back was time and money. I thought that if I could only put in a few more years of work in my entrepreneurial pursuits, I would have both the time and the money I would need. If I could only make a bit of money at an ‘okay’ job, then I could move on to pursuing my dreams.

While college does take a lot of time and money, I’m happy to report that it doesn’t take nearly as much as I had anticipated it would. If you lack time, you don’t have to enroll full-time. You can take one or two courses at a time, if you like. As for the money, if you go to an instate community college where tuition is a lot lower, financial aid may cover most of it.

Then, of course, there are the scholarships. There’s actually a scholarship specifically for the ex-Amish seeking a higher education. The Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund was started by two ex-Amish women, Emma Miller (featured in Devil’s Playground 2002) and Naomi Kramer. This year they’re giving out several hefty scholarships (from $1,000 to $5,000) to ex-Amish students.

I think what they’re doing is amazing. If you’re an ex-Amish person thinking about going to college, be sure to head over to their website www.amishscholarship.com and apply. Don’t think that you won’t have a chance. If you’re ex-Amish and want a higher education, you’ve already distinguished yourself from the pack. If you qualify, I think you’ll have a very good chance of getting a scholarship. If perchance, the scholarship is $5000, that will cover the tuition and fees at some community colleges for a whole year.

If you’re not an ex-Amish student, consider donating to the cause or publicizing the scholarship by ‘Liking’ their Facebook page and sharing posts.

College is much more than just a crapload of exams and then a stressful job. In college you can learn so many interesting things. In college you  can direct your education, to some extent. You can choose many of your own courses, and study what interests you. In college you will broaden your horizons and begin to understand so much more about our society, our history, and where we’re going. With a college education, you won’t be limited to mindless, back-breaking, labor–you can follow your dreams.

Note: I am not receiving anything other than satisfaction for promoting this scholarship. I promote it only because I think what they’re doing is amazing.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Life through the Eyes of an Atheist

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

atheism, Christianity, life, religion, worldview


Things have changed a little now that some of my friends know about my lack of faith. This post and perhaps more to come are geared a little more toward helping them and others understand atheism.

It seems the popular belief is that atheists are miserable people that have nothing to live for. When many Christians think of atheists, they think of someone who is bound for eternal hell and knows it deep down. They think of someone with a pointless existence, somebody that is just trying to make it miserable for everybody. Some of them think it’s impossible to truly believe that there is no God–that we must be followers of Satan and are actively trying to trick everyone else into damnation and eternal torture.

There are several reasons why Christians view atheists as a sorry lot. Often, when a Christian hears from an atheist they hear negative words. This is quite simply because the atheist is disagreeing with the Christian. Atheists also talk about a lot of other things–you just might not realize that they’re atheists when they’re talking about other things. Another reason is that Christians attribute so much of their happiness to their faith that they can’t imagine how someone without that faith could be as happy as they are. I, on the other hand, suspect that happiness is a little more about chemicals in our brains and a little less about our metaphysical beliefs.

When I was a Christian, I believed that my purpose in life, in fact, the objective purpose of everyone’s life was to earn that ticket into heaven. As I entered into that transitionary period between Christianity and atheism, I often struggled with a seeming contradiction. On the one hand I felt that life was worth living but on the other hand, I couldn’t think of an objective reason for me to feel that way. My life had lost its purpose, but weirdly enough, my zeal for it remained.

I eventually decided (i.e. realized) that there is no objective purpose to life–that we each find our own. Did life suddenly become more pointless for me? In all honesty, I would have to say that yes it did. But life also became less serious and a little more whimsical and fun.

The Christian is never alone. Often the Christian feels the presence of God, Jesus, and even angels. In times of fear, these feelings can be helpful in staving off panic, in gaining a feeling of security. I remember as a child, I would always pray when I was alone and afraid. After praying, I would feel the omnipotent presence of God, and I would immediately feel more secure. I don’t feel the presence of God, Jesus, or the angels anymore, and I am glad for it. I realize now that they were never there–that my brain tricked itself into feeling safer and more powerful all on its own.

Christians pray for various reasons ranging from material possessions, to finances, to world peace. It helps them clarify their goals, wishes, and desires, and it helps them deal with the difficulty of achieving them. If these goals, wishes, and desires do not come to fruition, then they feel secure in that God’s will is being done. Praying also allows Christians to feel like they’re helping others without actually having to do anything.

I no longer believe in the efficacy of prayer and as a direct result of that, I am more confident and have more self-esteem. I believe that prayers sometimes do come true, but I do not believe it has anything to do with anything supernatural. It’s simply the result of self-fulfillment and coincidences. I believe the idea that prayer has a direct effect on our lives (via supernatural means) is a mistake resulting from various interpretive biases (e.g. confirmation bias, placebo effect, etc.). Many of my prayers had come true but now I believe it was I that accomplished those things, and not some supernatural being that is watching over me and doing all the difficult work for me. Realizing that I deserve the credit for my successes and the blame for my failures, rather than God, gives me more self-confidence and a feeling of greater control over the course of my life.

Church provides many psychological and social benefits for the Christian. Being a member of a church provides the Christian with a greater sense of community, frequent fellowship, and the knowledge that they have something in common with a large number of people. As an atheist, I have yet to find secular equivalents for these things, and it is something that I miss. I do periodically go to church with my friends but the large difference in worldviews makes the experience considerably less enjoyable for me.

A lot of Christians have faith, but what is faith? It seems to me that faith is a cultivated optimism based on beliefs that can’t be proven. Faith provides a means for Christians to accept their limited control over their lives and environments while at the same time believing that there is a grand reason to it all. They see the world through these colored lenses and I see it affect their understanding of and explanations for events all the time. As an atheist, I don’t really have anything equivalent to this cultivated optimism and I’m glad that I don’t. I want to see the world as it is and faith seems a little too much like willful self-delusion.

A little note about semantics here: If faith is defined as ‘belief in God despite a lack of evidence’, then I most certainly do not have faith. However, if faith is defined as ‘a belief that concerns questions for which there are no answers’, then I might have faith in various things (although I would not consider it logical). In that sense, faith could be another word for optimism. I consider both optimism and pessimism to be illogical, tainted frames of mind. I do not have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow morning. I have a reason to believe, based on past experiences, that the sun will come up tomorrow morning.

When I was a Christian, I believed that the Bible and my fear of eternal hell were why I tried to be a good person. I was being forced by God, to be a good person. Now that I’m an atheist, I feel a lot more free. I feel free to steal, and kill, and rape as much as I please. But I don’t. I realize now that I try to be a good person because that’s how I am. It had been me all along–not God or a fear of hell. As a result, my morality feels deeper and more personal. Here’s a quote by atheist and magician Penn Jillette that seems relevant:

“The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.” ~Penn Jillette

When I was a Christian, half the stuff I did made me feel guilty. Every time I smoked a cigarette or drank a beer I was destroying a little bit of Jesus’ temple. Every time I drove a car or wore “English” clothing, I was breaking the rules of the church and God. Every time I questioned the existence of God, I was committing blasphemy–the worst possible moral offense, or so I thought. Without God, I have no more of that religious guilt. I still try to be a good person and I feel guilty every once in a while when I do something that I shouldn’t, but a lot of that stuff that caused me to feel guilty years ago, I realize now are neither wrong nor right and it’s a waste of time and energy to fret over the ethics of them.

The Christian is in constant awe of his God and the mighty powers attributed to him. As an atheist, I feel much the same way about the universe. I often look up at the starry night sky and marvel in awe and wonder at the scale, the mystery, and the absurdity of it all. It just blows my mind that things exist, but unlike the Christian, this feeling does not compel me to believe in a supernatural creator.

Supernatural explanations seem to help those that are seeking only to ease their fears but they don’t actually provide meaningful information about our universe. The idea that disease is caused by demons or that it is punishment for some earlier “immoral” action by the victim, was never helpful in treating or preventing illness. In fact, such thinking probably prevented mankind from discovering the true causes of disease for a long time. The natural explanation–the germ theory of disease, on the other hand, has been extremely helpful in preventing, curing, and mitigating the effects of disease for over a hundred years. Evolutionary theory is a lot harder to understand than Biblical creation stories but once you put in the effort and actually learn about it, you realize that it explains so much more about life. Similarly, modern cosmology is a lot more meaningful when it comes to understanding the larger universe, than the idea that God created it all in six days. Saying, “God did it,” has never been helpful in reaching a deeper understanding of any process. As an atheist and a science advocate, I am always seeking the natural explanation. It takes a lot more energy and effort to understand the natural explanations but the result is far more meaningful. I look up at the night sky, out at the universe, and it all makes a lot more sense than it did when I was a Christian. That alone is worth all the social stigma of being an atheist.

I couldn’t complete this post in all honesty without touching on the worst thing about being an atheist–the social stigma. As an atheist, I belong to a tiny minority of people that has metaphysical beliefs that are in diametric opposition to the majority. We face a lot of intolerance and discrimination for it and it can make our social life a little more unpleasant than it needs to be. I hope that with time, atheism becomes more widespread and more accepted and this intolerance will fade away.

I do not believe in an eternal life after death that will redeem me for all the good things I do. I do not believe in an eternal hellfire that will punish those that do harm to me and to others. As an atheist, I believe that this life is all I have and it is my goal to make the most of it.

As an atheist, I do not live in a dark and gloomy and pointless world as you might think. All in all, I believe that I am exactly as happy as the average Christian with a solid faith in God. I am certainly a lot happier than I was as a Christian with doubts.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Atheism vs. Christianity: The Insults aren’t Working

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

atheism, belief, belief system, Christianity, condescension, conversion, debate, insult, religion, worldview


When people believe that their worldviews are epistemologically superior to others (which most do), the temptation is high to disparage other worldviews with condescending insults. Atheists and Christians are equally guilty of this. Members of both sides are constantly attacking each other in an attempt to make the opposition appear ridiculous.

Insult against atheism

Insult against Christianity

Many atheists believe that Christians are stupid and vice versa. This belief is particularly present when in the middle of a heated debate with a member of the other side. Even I am often tempted to insult the intelligence of the other side until I remember that not too long ago, I was on their side.

It is a rather weird anecdote of human psychology that I, 1) Always consider myself intelligent, 2) Am constantly updating my belief system, and 3) Several months later I tend to think of anyone holding any of my old beliefs, as being “stupid”. It’s hypocrisy, I know, and it may just be me but I suspect it applies to many other people as well. It’s something I need to think about before silently or vocally insulting someone else’s intelligence.

Those insults do not help change the mind of the religious person or the atheist. I know this after experiencing both sides. All that an insult accomplishes is to anger the other person and destroy all chance of a continued dialogue. Insults probably do more harm than good.

As hard as it might be to believe, there really are intelligent Christians that wholeheartedly believe in the literal truth of the Bible. I should know–I used to be one. It is a testament to the power of indoctrination, and the atheist hoping to change religious minds would do well to understand this power. The Christian would do well to understand that the atheist is intelligent, and that he is also a seeker of truth, and not intrinsically evil.

Based once again only on my experience on both sides of the argument, here are some tips I have for encouraging a shift in a worldview. They will be written from the perspective of an atheist trying to change a Christian’s worldview.

1) Be an ethical and an intelligent person. Show the other side, by your speech and actions, that you’re not stupid or intrinsically evil.

2) Begin a dialogue. The tone of the dialogue is important. It should be friendly and never confrontational. Give the (truthful) impression that you are also seeking truth and not just manufacturing counter-arguments for the sake of disagreeing.

3) Take it slowly. It took me about ten years of thought to go from fundamental Christian (Amish) to atheist. What you’re seeking is a radical shift in worldview and it’s not going to happen overnight. In fact, if you throw too much “evidence” at the other side all at once, you’re more likely to push the other person away than to change their mind. Judge the other person’s position and level of knowledge and seek only a small victory in any given conversation. If you achieve it, leave it at that and let it ferment in the other person’s mind. Remember, you are trying to undermine years and years of indoctrination.

4) This may or may not be effective for everyone, but it seems to work for me: Guide the other person to the answer rather than giving it to them. I find that it is more effective to ask the right questions than it is to state the answers.

5) Provide well-written and easy to understand resources to help your fellow truth-seeker to understand the more technical aspects of your worldview. For example, several of Richard Dawkin’s books were instrumental in helping me understand evolution and grasping the general idea of evolution was a turning point in my transition from fundamental Christian to atheist.

So in conclusion; be nice. How nice? Pretend that the person you’re debating with is your best friend, your significant other, or your mother. They really are mine.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Is TLC’s Long Island Medium Fake too?

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

James Randi, JREF, Long Island Medium, medium, paranormal, skepticism, Theresa Caputo, TLC


In the last week or so this blog has been getting 15,000 to 30,000 page views per day. All that attention was generated by my last several posts which reveal that TLC’s Breaking Amish is based on a false premise. Given all this attention, I feel it is my ethical responsibility to point a questioning finger at another one of their shows–Long Island Medium.

Anyway, my point should be an obvious one–you can’t talk to dead people! Convincing people that you can talk to dead people is easy. All it takes is research and cold reading.

So please contact TLC and ask them to prove that  the Long Island Medium is not a fake. If it’s real, it should be easy to prove. There’s even a $1 million dollar prize in it for them if they can prove that it’s real.

My posts over the last two weeks have generated a lot of interest. They have also generated a lot of something else as evidenced by a visit from a private investigator with veiled threats of a slander lawsuit. However, I believe in revealing the truth, even if the process or the potential consequences become scary.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Blogs by Amish and ex-Amish Writers

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Other, The Amish

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

amish, Amish writers, blogging, ex-amish, ex-Amish writers


If you really want to learn about the Amish and what it’s like to leave the Amish, a great place to start is reading blogs by Amish (some progressive communities allow computers) and ex-Amish writers. On this page I will show a list of some of these blogs. Be sure to favorite the page as I will be adding to the list as time goes on. If you know of a relevant blog that is not listed, please leave a comment with the link and I will add it to the list.

Please be respectful of these writers. Many of them are not atheist like I am and some of them are beginning writers.

Here they are, not in any particular order:

  • About Amish – by Saloma Furlong
  • Project 365 – by Katie Troyer
  • Pinecraft Sarasota – by Katie Troyer
  • Growing Up Amish – Anna Dee Olson
  • The Literary Party: The Poetic Life and Times of James Schwartz
  • Ex Amish Gal
  • Amish in the City Mose – Mose Gingerich
  • Ira’s Writings – Ira Wagler
  • A Joyful Chaos – Mary Ann Kinsinger
  • Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund
  • Der Reggeboge Freindschaft – Joseph Stalnaker

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Hypocrisy of School Prayer

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

atheism, Christianity, hypocrisy, public prayer, school prayer


I don’t know if it’s as much of an issue today or not but I know that several years ago Christians were making a big deal about prayer in public schools. Many Christians wanted school-led prayer allowed in public schools while secular groups pointed out that it would violate the First Amendment.

Well, I want to point out something else. Public prayer is a hypocrisy. Christians are informed very unambiguously that public prayer is done by hypocrites.

Matthew 6: 5-6 (KJV)

5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

It is clear that those people that pray in churches, out on the street, or anywhere in public, are not succeeding as Christians. It is clear, according to Christian gospel, that anybody advocating prayer in school is doing so in blatant opposition to the teachings of Jesus. So just shut up you hypocrites, you have defeated yourselves!

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Catch me on Penn’s Sunday School Podcast

04 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

atheism, penn jillette, penn's sunday school


This Sunday you can listen to me on Penn’s Sunday School. If all goes according to plan I’ll be on this Sunday (September 9, 2012) soon after noon Pacific time. If all does not go as planned then I’m sure I’ll be on some other Sunday.

Penn’s Sunday School is a podcast by comedian Penn Jillette–an outspoken libertarian and atheist. Penn Jillette might be best known as half of the Penn & Teller team–a duo of Vegas illusionists and stars of the television show Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

I first became familiar with Penn Jillette’s work through Penn & Teller: Bullshit! This funny, irreverent, and very skeptical television show tears apart many practices and beliefs that people generally take for granted. Even my very Christian girlfriend enjoyed the show although she would frequently shake her head at their irreverence and rampant blasphemy.

Penn Jillette is one of my favorite living atheists and when I first started my Twitter account several weeks ago, he was like the third person I followed. Right after Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, of course. Lo and behold, as I was perusing his most recent tweets I came upon one mentioning an ex-Amish atheist being on their show. I wanted to meet this guy (there are so few of us) so I tweeted at Jillette. It turns out the ex-Amish guy had been lying about being ex-Amish, what a bummer. Anyway, so I offered to be on their show if they wanted an ex-Amish person, and long story short, if all goes well, I’ll be on the show this coming Sunday.

This will be my first ever “public appearance” and I’m not sure how it will go. In real life I am a very introverted person that does not enjoy socializing. Alone and in my head, or when writing, I generally appear fairly intelligent, but discourse in a social context reduces me to a useless lump of quivering flesh. Hopefully, the veil of anonymity promised to me by the producer of Penn’s Sunday School will short-circuit that response so I don’t embarrass myself. Pray for me… just kidding 🙂

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Christians and their Delusional Stockholm Syndrome

31 Thursday May 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christianity, religion, stockholm syndrome


Let me tell you a story about life on a certain planet in our galaxy.

On planet M there are billions of people. These beings are held captive by an evil dictator. Their dictator forces all the people to constantly praise him and to sing songs for him because apparently he has insecurity issues and needs to have his greatness constantly affirmed by the people.

This evil dictator does more than just force the people praise him. He also developed a seemingly arbitrary but very strict code of behavior that the people must obey. For example, people of group A are not allowed to marry people of group B. People of group C are not allowed to have physical contact with people of group D. Certain foods are off-limits to everybody, certain activities can only be done at specific times of the day, and to top it all off the dictator taxes the people at a ridiculous high rate.

This evil dictator, on top of demanding the unreasonable terms listed above, threatens disobedience and dissidence with torture for the rest of one’s life. Oh but it gets worse! Using proprietary technology, the dictator forces you to live forever so that he can torture you for the longest time possible.

Before you get the idea that we should fly over to this planet and kill the evil dictator you should know that you would receive significant resistance from the captives. These poor people are so deluded that they think their dictator is saving their lives. They believe that without the dictator, evil would run rampant across their beautiful little planet. For these reasons they love their dictator. They don’t love the dictator just because it’s one of his terms, no, they really do love him and they will do anything to keep him alive, in power, and in complete control of their lives.

So apparently, these people are suffering from a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome. This is a psychological phenomenon that we people of Earth discovered a long time ago. It is the strange phenomenon in which captives develop empathy and positive feelings for their captors. Now if only we could send these people a message – a message of enlightenment that tells them all about Stockholm Syndrome. Surely then they would realize what is really happening.

Or maybe not. This story just gets weirder because as it turns out, the dictator doesn’t actually exist. The inhabitants of planet M made him up a long time ago and now firmly believe him to exist despite all evidence to the contrary. The people of planet M go to great lengths to prove to their poor deluded minds that this dictator exists because it makes them feel better about themselves. So convinced are they of the dictator’s existence that they think life without the dictator would be pointless. We have more than just classic Stockholm Syndrome going on here, we have Delusional Stockholm Syndrome.

Such a thing couldn’t possibly happen on Earth could it? Of course not! Now let’s pray to God.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Signs and Tests from God

30 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

amish, Christianity, Haiti earthquake, religion, sign from God, test of faith


Probably all Christians view events in their life through the colored glasses of their faith. They tend to award undue significance to certain events because they think the event might be a sign from God. This behavior is particularly prolific among the Amish, who believe that God coordinates all events large and small. They believe that God causes specific events as signs to help guide you down the right path or as tests of your faith.

For example, if an Amish man started a new business and his buildings promptly burned down, many of the Amish would consider the possibility that the fire was a sign from God that starting a business was not the right thing for that man to do. On the other hand, if the aspiring businessman really wanted to succeed at the business he would be more likely to view the fire as a test – a test from God to see how much he wants to succeed at his business.

I remember when the 2010 Haiti earthquake occurred, several of my Amish friends suggested that the inhabitants of Haiti must be pretty evil for God to punish them like that. I suspect that this kind of shallow reasoning is a result of the flood story in the Bible.

On the other hand, don’t you think that faithful Christians living in Haiti at the time of the earthquake had quite a different interpretation of the event? Don’t you think they would have been more likely to view the quake as a test of their faith?

Every time there is a natural disaster there are Christians who have just lost their homes talking on television about how this test from God has only strengthened their faith. Elsewhere, there are Christians shaking their heads and wondering what evil these people did in their lives to be punished by God like that.

If something bad happens to anyone, the Amish that like the person interpret the event as a test of faith. The others interpret the event as a punishment from God. Nobody seems to notice how ridiculously subjective and judgmental these interpretations are.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Blogging Bananas Exist!

05 Saturday May 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Other

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bible, circular reasoning, existence of God


This blog is written and maintained by a banana. Blogging bananas exist!

Some people claim that God exists because the Bible says so. They also believe that the Bible is true because God wrote it.

To be honest… that’s just fu**ing stupid!

Why? Because it’s circular. If the Bible is your evidence for the existence of God, then you can’t validly use the claim that “God wrote it” as proof of the truth of the Bible.

I’m using the same logic when I say that, “This blog is written and maintained by a banana. Blogging bananas exist!”. Now, do you believe in blogging bananas?

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 885 other subscribers

RSS Feed

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Follow me on Twitter:

  • @DBarrett2082 I haven't seen it, but my Amish friends say it's even worse than the original when it comes to realism. 9 years ago
  • College and the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund wp.me/p2mgWY-bx 9 years ago
  • @JanetOber I am alive and well but busy with school. Thanks for asking! 9 years ago
  • Penn is my #CelebApprenticeMVP 9 years ago
  • God Exists Because the Alternative Sucks? wp.me/p2mgWY-bl 9 years ago
Follow @xamishatheist

Top Posts & Pages

  • TLC's Breaking Amish: Jeremiah's Girlfriend, Iva
  • Update on Breaking Amish: The Scandal
  • The Truth about Rumspringa
  • TLC's Breaking Amish: Is Kate Fake too?
  • TLC's Breaking Amish: The Scandal of Jeremiah Raber
  • TLC's Breaking Amish: Episode 2 Brings us More Lies
  • TLC's Breaking Amish: Timeline of a Scandal
  • Suicide: Exploring the Afterlife
  • Ex-Amish Unite in Vicious Protests Against TLC's "Breaking Amish"
  • FAQ

Latest Posts

  • College and the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund
  • God Exists Because the Alternative Sucks?
  • Why Christians should be Killing Babies
  • Thoughts on the Semantics of Free Will
  • The Illusion of Free Will
  • Amish Mafia: Fact or Farce?
  • Life through the Eyes of an Atheist
  • A Letter to my Friends
  • The Semantics of my Atheism
  • Despising God

Top Rated Stuff

Archives

  • July 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012

Tags

Abe and Rebecca agnosticism amish atheism atheist belief belief system Bible big bang Breaking Amish breaking amish fake Christianity coming out contradiction death death penalty delusion dowsing dream education epistemology ethics evil evolution ex-amish faith free will friends gay girlfriend God heaven hell humanistic values hypocrite ideaology ignorance intelligence invisible Jeremiah Raber knowledge learning life logic Mennonite monster morality murder music nonexistence omnipotence Ordnung pantheism philosophy philosophy of mind pragmatism psyche radio rationalization reality reality tv redemption relationships religion repentance rumspringa scandal skepticism theory TLC TLC Breaking Amish truth water divination water witching worldview

Blog Stats

  • 1,180,806 hits

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • X Amish Atheist
    • Join 203 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • X Amish Atheist
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: